Numerical Simulation and Optimization of the Alumina Distribution in an Aluminium Electrolysis Pot

This thesis is about the numerical simulation and optimization of the alumina repartition in the bath of an aluminium electrolysis pot. A mathematical model is set up which contains the feeding of alumina particles to the bath, the dissolution of the particles, the motion of the alumina in the bath, and the consumption of the alumina by electrolysis. The arising convection-diffusion equations are solved using stabilized finite elements. Different weak formulations of the convection-diffusion equation are compared and we find a formulation which ensures mass conservation even if the velocity field is not divergence free. A comparison of the complete numerical simulation with real world experiments is carried out, showing that the numerical results are in very good agreement with the measured values. In a second part we optimize the feeding of the particles, with the aim of getting a more uniform distribution of the alumina concentration in the bath. A mathematical model of the optimization problem is proposed and subsequently solved using particle swarm optimization and Newton's method.

A numerical study of isotropic and anisotropic constitutive models with relevance to healthy and unhealthy cerebral arterial tissues

Alfio Quarteroni, Adélia Sequeira, Paolo Tricerri

This paper presents an analysis of hyperelastic constitutive models for continuous bodies both from a modeling and numerical point of view. Contributions are made within the context of finite element numerical simulations. Numerical results with relevance to flows in the cardiovascular system are outlined in the case of a sophisticated fluid–structure interaction problem, in specific complex geometries of anatomically accurate cerebral arteries in diseased state. In this regard, the work carefully outlines the numerical validation of constitutive models for healthy and unhealthy cerebral arterial tissues by means of simulations of static inflation tests on an idealized specimen of anterior cerebral artery (ACA). The healthy tissue is described by means of isotropic and anisotropic models that, are fitted with respect to experimental data describing the mechanical behavior of the ACA; the numerical results are presented highlighting the most important numerical aspects influencing the correct and efficient simulation of the mechanics of continuous bodies such as, for instance, the arterial wall. We further consider numerical simulations of unhealthy conditions of the tissue by taking into account different levels of weakening of its mechanical properties. Taking the cerebral cardiovascular system as a challenging test problem, we focus on the study of the effects of the imposed mechanical levels of degradation on kinematic quantities of interest by simulating static inflation tests for the different models. This work does not aim to propose a new mathematical model for the mechanical damage occurring at the onset of cardiovascular diseases such as cerebral aneurysms. The modeling and numerical techniques presented may be applied to a wide range of problems, equally challenging to that of the cardiovascular system with complex structural models and fluid-structure coupling.

Elsevier2016

Segregated Algorithms for the Numerical Simulation of Cardiac Electromechanics in the Left Human Ventricle

Alfio Quarteroni

We propose and numerically assess three segregated ( partitioned) algorithms for the numerical solution of the coupled electromechanics problem for the left human ventricle. We split the coupled problem into its core mathematical models and we proceed to their numerical approximation. Space and time discretizations of the core problems are carried out by means of the Finite Element Method and Backward Differentiation Formulas, respectively. In our mathematical model, electrophysiology is represented by the monodomain equation while the Holzapfel-Ogden strain energy function is used for the passive characterization of tissue mechanics. A transmurally variable active strain model is used for the active deformation of the fibers of the myocardium to couple the electrophysiology and the mechanics in the framework of the active strain model. In this work, we focus on the numerical strategy to deal with the solution of the coupled model, which is based on novel segregated algorithms that we propose. These also allow using different time discretization schemes for the core submodels, thus leading to the formulation of staggered algorithms, a feature that we systematically exploit to increase the efficiency of the overall computational procedure. By means of numerical tests we show that these staggered algorithms feature (at least) first order of accuracy. We take advantage of the efficiency of the segregated schemes to solve, in a High Performance Computing framework, the cardiac electromechanics problem for the human left ventricle, for both idealized and subject-specific configurations.

SPRINGER INTERNATIONAL PUBLISHING AG2020

A numerical study of isotropic and anisotropic constitutive models with relevance to healthy and unhealthy cerebral arterial tissues

Alfio Quarteroni, Adélia Sequeira, Paolo Tricerri

Elsevier2016